Crafty Cfriday: Window Mistreatments

Friday, October 29, 2010

I was originally going to call this post, “Oh, my achin’ back” because while these curtains were not complicated to make, the whole ordeal was quite physically taxing.

So, “window mistreatments” is The Nester’s term for making curtains in a way that goes against all of the typical design rules. Speaking of the The Nester, this whole thing got started when I saw this picture of her curtains. I knew I had to have them:

I searched high and low for already made curtains or fabric in every catalog, website, and store I had access to but with no luck… However, as I was walking through Ikea a few weeks ago, I was struck with an idea…

“Why can’t I just paint them?”

They’re just stripes after all and I had just finished painting my pillows, so I figured painting these would be a cinch. Ikea had 96" white curtains (that’s floor to ceiling…and then some) that were $20 dollars for two panels—a price I couldn’t beat anywhere.

After another quick trip to the craft store, I had 8 bottles of Folk Art paint (color: “Fawn”) for $1.20 apiece. {Tip: if you try to do this yourself, I suggest a few more bottles. I barely had enough, which added a bit of stress and time to have to be so careful to make it last.}

So, here’s how it all went down…

I takes quite a bit of space to spread the entire curtain smoothly across the floor.I then marked off the edges on each side of the curtain with a fabric pen. The white stripes were 8 inches, the brown were 7 in. Luckily, the textured lines helped with putting the tape down—instead of drawing an entire line end to end, I marked each side and used the lines to help lay the tape down evenly.The finished product after taping {I just used traditional painter’s tape}. This part took half an hour, maybe.Nope, not baby poop.

Three stripes down… only four more to go! This was by far, the most time consuming aspect. From start to finish, line marking to hanging two panels took eight continuous hours {12 hours with breaks}.

Not pictured: a pillow and cardboard. A pillow for the hours you spend on your knees, and cardboard to absorb the paint that bleeds through the fabric. And remember, fabric absorbs every dab and drop of paint—this is where extra paint comes in handy— one bottle only painted 1.5 stripes. It would have only painted one stripe if I hadn’t been so careful.

And before I show you the finished product, here’s the before… {Just to show you how drab that wall was. It’s screaming for a window mistreatment, don’t you think?}

And the after…

I will not tell a lie… This project took All. Day. Tyler was out of town the weekend I did this, so from noon to midnight I was on my knees painting or standing on a chair drilling holes in the wall. My friend Jess, who I went to lunch with me the next day, can attest that I embodied a nine month along pregnant woman every time I slowly lowered myself into a chair and winced at the slightest movements of my body. My knees, my gluts, my thighs, my shoulders were sore for days.

But pain is temporary right? Right. And I l-o-v-e my new curtains. They were worth every hour, every ache, and every one of the $32 dollars they cost.

Yes, this might be my favorite project yet, folks… Now. What to do next?